The Grim (Ravens #3)

xii. no preparations

A/N: Writing this chapter was a grind. Apologizing AGAIN for all of yesterday's updating issues.

Assembling the group was easy, Sebastian realized. The numbers were just perfect, and he knew just the right four to recruit. The senior members of the guard had no problem approving them to take time off for this mission; nobody would dare question the team tasked with finding a cure to save their own people.

By this point, seven people had fallen ill, and very little of the research had succeeded. It seemed that anyone could by the disease's next victim; paranoia had begun to settle within the Fortress' walls. If anyone dared so much as to sneeze, they rushed to the nearest medical clinic to be tested. Children were missing day after day of school so that they could not catch whatever sickness was prancing around the air outside. Perhaps in the old days, such a reaction would not have followed such a small outbreak, but they were living in the post-plague world, remembered the last epidemic all too well.

At times it felt like Sebastian was sixteen again. Sixteen and the world around him was getting set on fire. He remembered driving home from school, his girlfriend Megan sitting in the passenger seat with the window down, running her hand through her long, dark hair and laughing as she turned up the music. He remembered seeing his neighbor's house get fumigated, every one of their belongings packed rapidly into boxes on their front lawn. They had found a rat in their home, and with the stressed craze of the recent outbreaks in Chicago—the city nearest their small town—they had become convinced that the rodents carried the disease to them. Sebastian remembered Megan crying in his driveway, absolutely terrified that the plague had come to little old Hillshire, Illinois. Back then, he thought she was fragile. What a pathetic assumption to have made. He knew now that she was wicked, that she commanded darkness itself.

"They're late," Donny said, snapping Sebastian out of his trance. He had been staring out their living room windows, watching as people walked by with their heads down on their way to work. Sebastian and his team had been granted the day off to prepare for their journey. There was plenty to do, and for some of the group, plenty to learn before entering the woods they'd only heard legends of.

"They'll be here soon," Sebastian shrugged.

"Why do we even need them?" his friend complained. He was seated on the couch beside Phoenix, his elbow pressing into his thighs and foot tapping anxiously against the ground. "'Nix and I are trained, Ash and Yasmin are trained. That's five, we all know the woods. We're good."

"It wasn't my decision," said Sebastian, "I had to compromise to get any of us to go. Skylar and Levi will be fine."

"Yeah, they'll be fine if they bother to show up. They're the ones who have shit to learn," Donny muttered.

"Give them five minutes," Sebastian said. Sure enough, within the allotted time, his friends on the junior guard arrived at the apartment. He couldn't help but notice the surprised eye contact between Donny and Phoenix, as though they were beyond shocked that this was the girl he'd been spending so much time with. Up until this point, they'd assumed he had a very specific type. Mai, Megan, even Natalia whom he had accidentally hooked up with drunk, shared certain characteristics, put off a certain vibe. While they couldn't quite identify his qualifications, it wasn't hard to say this punk-rock girl almost six feet tall with the androgynous haircut and arms covered in colorful tattoos was clearly different than any girl he'd ever shown interest in before.

"Sorry," she said, kicking off her shoes near the front door, "I got held up at home. One of the kids got food poisoning last night and now the rest are convinced we're all gonna die, but Monica's still making all of them go to school. It's such a mess up there."